Jaime's Escalante's Second Act

Jaime Escalante, arguably the most famous teacher in America, is
standing just inside the entrance to his classroom at Hiram Johnson
Senior High School in Sacramento, Calif. It's 1:15 in the afternoon,
and Escalante, wearing his trademark corduroy cap and cardigan sweater,
is holding the door open for a trickle of incoming students. The hot
sun beats down on the sidewalk that runs along the outside wall of the
stucco building.

At 1:20 sharp, before the bell even stops ringing, Escalante will
shut the door, and it will lock behind him. Students who are late will
have to knock loudly; if they are lucky, Escalante will let them in,
but he will berate them for their tardiness. "Why you late?'' he will
ask in his still-thick Bolivian accent. The contrite student will
mumble an excuse, and if Escalante is in a good mood, he will
say--after what may seem like an eternity--"Take a seat.''

But right now, the door is still open. A boy walks up to the
doorway, peers in, and says, to no one in particular, "Escalante!''
Hearing this, the math teacher steps into the sunlight and asks the
student if he's in his 5th period class, which is about to begin.
"No,'' he says. Escalante retreats to the classroom, and the kid says,
"He doesn't look like the guy in the movie.'' Walking away, the student
ponders his brush with celebrity. "I wonder if he's rich,'' he says to
himself.

It has now been nearly three years since Escalante quit his job at
Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, where he taught for 16 years,
and headed north to Sacramento. Fed up with what he called the
"ingratitude'' of some of his colleagues and frustrated by parents who
didn't value academic achievement, Escalante turned his back on the
school that had benefited so much from his teaching wizardry.

When Escalante first began teaching at Garfield, in 1974, the school
was at the bottom of the academic barrel; the Western Association of
Schools and Colleges had threatened to revoke the school's
accreditation. By 1987, however, only three other public schools in the
country were producing more Advanced Placement calculus students than
Garfield. And by 1991, 570 students at the school took AP tests in 14
different subject areas. Escalante proved that poor Hispanic students
were just as capable at excelling at a difficult subject like calculus
as were the most privileged white students.

Stand and Deliver, the 1987 movie about Escalante, starring Edward
James Olmos, made the math teacher that rarest of things: a celebrity
teacher. A steady stream of visitors descended upon his classroom,
eager to get a first-hand look at such an inspiring educator.
Politicians and pundits praised his efforts, and foundations offered
much-needed financial support. Sometimes the acclaim was embarrassing,
such as the title of Jay Mathews' 1988 book about the educator:
Escalante: The Best Teacher in America.

Escalante now says he has found his "second home'' at Johnson, and
he insists he can repeat the success he had at Garfield. "The whole
picture's gonna change,'' he says. "It's gonna be much better than
Garfield High.''

Already, there are signs of progress. In the spring of 1991, before
Escalante began teaching at Johnson, six of the school's approximately
2,400 students took the first-year AP calculus test, a relatively low
number compared with other schools. All six "passed'' the test by
receiving a score of 3 or better out of a possible 5. (Many colleges
and universities offer credit for such scores.) Last May, 25 students
at the school took the first-year AP calculus test. Of those, 73
percent scored a 3 or better. No student took the more difficult
second-year AP test.

Escalante won't take all the credit for the improvement; he points
out that he is one of two calculus teachers at Johnson. But clearly,
something is going on.

Still, Escalante has his work cut out for him if he wants to achieve
the same results as he did at Garfield. During his last year of
teaching there, 106 of the school's 3,800 students took the firstyear
AP calculus test; 62, or 58 percent, passed. And of the 37 students who
took the second-year test, 25, or 68 percent, passed.

Donald Giusti, Johnson High's principal, says it's misleading to
focus solely on the AP test results in gauging Escalante's impact on
the school. "I think that's doing an injustice to Jaime's influence and
Jaime's program,'' he says. "I think it's far more reaching. And I
think the benefits down the line will be demonstrated not only by the
AP kids but also by the overall success rate of students in the school.
I know that sounds like some sort of educational B.S., but I honestly
believe that.''

When Rudy Crew, the former superintendent of the Sacramento city
schools, first heard that Escalante was planning on leaving Garfield,
he jumped at the chance to hire the renowned teacher. "Jaime Escalante
is going to add a breath of fresh air,'' Crew said at the time. "He
will be a powerful force for change. He will create a vision for other
teachers and administrators about what's possible.''

Johnson, one of the district's lowestachieving high schools, seemed
like the logical place for someone like Escalante. Its student body is
truly multicultural: 28 percent Asian, 20 percent AfricanAmerican, 19
percent Hispanic, 32 percent white, 1 percent American Indian. Nearly
half of the students come from families dependent on some form of
welfare. The dropout rate for the 1991-92 school year was 41 percent,
slightly more than the district average of 38 percent. Hispanic
students at the school drop out at a staggering rate of 51 percent.

Set in a residential neighborhood southeast of downtown,
Johnson--with its large football field and unattached stucco
buildings--has the appearance of a typical suburban California high
school. But looks are deceiving: Johnson is an innercity school, and,
as at many urban public schools in America, gangs are part of the
culture. Sometimes violence breaks out. In September 1992, a
long-standing dispute among Hispanic and Asian-American gangs resulted
in the on-campus shooting of two students. Both were seriously wounded.
According to a district study, only 36 percent of the students at
Johnson feel safe on the school grounds, compared with a rate of 54
percent for the entire school district.

Escalante's arrival at Johnson was closely followed by the local
media. The Sacramento Bee marked Escalante's first day on the job with
a story headlined " 'Stand And Deliver' Opens Today at Johnson High:
Maverick Math Teacher Brings Show To Capital.'' The article quoted
several teachers who said they were excited about Escalante's presence
at the school. But it also quoted Richard Cisneros, then the school's
principal, who said: "You bring in a star, a heavy hitter, it's just
natural [that] there are going to be some jealousies, a certain amount
of animosity.''

It's no wonder some teachers were initially wary of Escalante. At
Garfield, he wasn't exactly known for his diplomacy. "Escalante's
temper and distaste for compromise hurt feelings,'' wrote Jay Mathews
in Escalante. "His influence...and the media stardom he achieved after
1982 brought resentment.'' When Escalante quit his job at Garfield, the
Bee quoted John Perez, a vice president of United Teachers-Los Angeles,
the teachers' union, who said: "Jaime didn't get along with some of the
teachers at his school. He pretty much was a loner.''

At Johnson High, some teachers thought Escalante was getting special
treatment. When work crews began remodeling a large automotive shop
room to become Escalante's classroom, rumors began circulating around
the school that he was getting his own private bathroom, too. He
didn't, but one teacher wanted to know if Escalante was going to get
monogrammed towels.

Even without a bathroom, Escalante's classroom is quite different
from the others at Johnson, which was built in 1957 and shows its age.
His room has carpeting; the others don't. His has air conditioning; the
others don't. He has a telephone; most of the other teachers don't. He
has his own Xerox machine; the other teachers don't. On top of that,
the district created a special classification of "demonstration
teacher'' so that he could qualify for a starting salary of $42,983 a
year, more than he would have earned under the regular pay schedule.
(Principal Giusti says there are other teachers at Johnson who are "at
the top of the scale.'')

"There was some animosity at first,'' says computer teacher David
Bayne, "because he got a lot more than the rest of us. He got an
air-conditioned room, which a lot of people don't realize was paid for
by a grant. He got a lot of resources, which most people didn't realize
were being given to him. They thought they were district resources.

"He did get some things from the district that the rest of us
didn't, like a new position on the salary scale. And he was exempt from
layoffs one year. So there was some animosity. But most of us look at
him as just another teacher who happened to be taking over a class that
we desperately needed a teacher for.''

Giusti also defends Escalante's perks. "Everybody should have what
he has,'' he says. "It would be nice. But that's not the reality of
this business.'' And for Giusti, the bottom line is that public
education is a business, and bringing in a star like Escalante is a
sound business decision.

"I would guess,'' he says, "that most people who are in the public
schools don't really understand marketing, they don't understand public
relations....We have to constantly be out there beating the bushes
telling people about the positive things that we do.

"So Jaime markets Jaime's program, Jaime markets the school, Jaime
markets the positive things that we're trying to accomplish. And people
piggyback on that. And, if we're smart at all, we will take that and
ride with it for whatever we can get out of it. And the kids
benefit.''

Now that Escalante has been in place for nearly three years, what do
the other teachers think of him? "It depends,'' Bayne says. "Some don't
like him, some really like him, and, for the most part, he's just a
regular teacher. He happens to bring a lot of publicity to the school,
which is definitely a positive. It filters into all of our programs.
Other people seem to be more willing to give us resources because he is
here. It's nice for name-dropping when you're asking someone to give
you something.''

Escalante's classroom is a marvel to behold. Nearly every inch of
wall space is covered with posters and banners: "STAND AND DELIVER,''
"THE TIME TO STUDY FOR FINAL EXAMS IS NOW,'' "KEEP YOUR HIGH SCHOOL
CLEAN, IT'S YOUR SECOND HOME,'' "STUDENT WHO SAYS, 'IT CANNOT BE DONE'
SHOULD NOT INTERRUPT STUDENT WHO IS DOING IT,'' "CALCULUS NEED NOT BE
MADE EASY, IT IS EASY ALREADY.'' On the front wall, above one of four
blackboards, is perhaps Escalante's most famous slogan: "GANAS...that's
all you need!'' Translated from the Spanish, ganas means urge, desire,
inclination. The concept is at the heart of Escalante's teaching style.
To him, any student can learn--as long as he or she has the ganas.

Escalante teaches five classes at Johnson: basic math, algebra I,
algebra II, trigonometry, and calculus. He usually spends about 10
minutes at the beginning of each class intro- ducing a math concept
before letting the students work on problems on their own. While they
work, Escalante moves among the students, paying special attention to
the ones who need the most help. Every now and then, he returns to the
blackboard to explain an especially troublesome problem.

But he is clearly more than just a math teacher; his real subject is
the philosophy of Jaime Escalante. His lessons are punctuated with a
sort of running commentary meant to motivate and edify his students. "I
do not teach only math,'' he says. "I also teach discipline and
responsibility and morality.''

He'll tell his students, "Don't smoke, don't drink.'' Or, "School is
the site of your dreams and opportunities. In order to achieve in this
country, you have to have an education.'' If he thinks they are
drifting off, he'll put Queen's 1977 hit "We Will Rock You'' on his CD
player and crank up the volume. Then he'll grab a boxing puppet with
curly brown hair, with which he'll playfully punch his amused students.
Eventually, he'll get back to teaching mathematics.

Escalante isn't above using bluster to get what he wants. "I don't
have stupid kids,'' he yells to one class. "I have lazy kids. You sit
at home and watch TV!'' To a student who was absent because of the
Chinese New Year, he says, "The problem in this school is that there
are too many holidays! I don't take off Cinco de Mayo!'' To a boy in
the front row, he says, "Look at me when I look at you. How come you
don't show up on Friday?'' To a troublemaker in his basic math class,
he says, "Hey macho man! I'm watching you.''

Escalante's trump card is the phone call home, and he constantly
threatens to use it. "I'm gonna call your dad,' he tells one girl. "I
have to call your mother,'' he says to another. "Hey macho man! Are you
gonna come next week? Otherwise, I'm gonna have to call somebody.'' If
he has trouble reaching a parent, he might call when he's certain
someone will be at home--like 4:30 in the morning.

Escalante's students seem alternately scared, amused, and captivated
by their larger-than-life teacher. Many--but not all--have seen Stand
and Deliver, so they know he's someone famous. They're used to the
visitors who come and sit in the observation booth in the back of the
classroom, scribbling notes behind the oneway glass. Most of them call
him "Mr. Escalante,'' but a few prefer to use "Kimo,'' Escalante's
nickname at Garfield High.

He insists that his students sign a contract, which outlines exactly
what is expected of them. ("Every student will bring ganas to class,''
states one requirement, "which is essential if he or she is to be
successful in this class.'') Most of the students sign on the dotted
line, but, for some reason, his calculus students have rebelled. "The
whole class,'' Escalante says, shaking his head. "They don't agree with
my philosophy. They want the freedom to drop the class anytime they
want to. So they won't sign the contract.'' Of the 12 or so students in
this class, Escalante says, "Only two or three kids have the ganas to
work. The other ones...'' His voice trails off.

One of Escalante's calculus students, a senior named Phong Ung, says
of her teacher: "I don't like his teaching technique because he skips a
lot. He'll teach us one thing, then he'll kind of forget about it, then
he'll teach us a new thing and test us on that.'' She's not sure
whether she'll take the AP test. "I'm thinking about it. It depends on
how things go this semester.''

Escalante's students may not all be devoted to him, but it's obvious
that he is totally devoted to them. He takes it personally if someone
tries to drop a class, and, in fact, he'll do everything in his power
to prevent a student from dropping one of his classes.

He pulls out a note from a girl who decided she'd had enough:

Mr. Escalante, I know that you tried your hardest to teach me and to
help me learn math, but we both know I didn't want to learn it.

I guess I'm scared to learn it. What's weird about math is that when
you sat down and showed me how to do the problem, I understood it, but
the minute you got up and I have to do the problem myself, I'd forget
how to do it. That's why I never did any work, because I felt dumb. I
do fairly good in all my other classes, but when it comes to math I
just get scared and forget everything you said. I'm really sorry for
all the stress I caused you.

Also, thank you for making me realize that I really do need to try
to at least learn math before I say, 'I can't do it.'

The girl doesn't know it, but Escalante has no intention of letting
her get away without a fight. "I'm gonna work on her,'' he says,
folding up the letter and slipping it into his shirt pocket. "I'm gonna
call her parents.'' There's a twinkle in his eyes.

Escalante's domain is his classroom; he seems oddly detached from
the rest of the school. Asked how many other math teachers there are at
Johnson, he thinks for a minute, then says, "I'm sorry to disappoint
you, but I don't know.'' Does he fraternize with other faculty members?
"I do not have time,'' he answers. "I get really tired at the end of
the day. My concentration is more toward the kids than anything else.
Some of the teachers understand that, some of them don't. But I really
don't care.''

"There are some people who resent him for being aloof,'' says math
teacher Rick Marcroft. "But all teachers are like that. They teach
alone in a classroom. So there's a double standard being applied to
Jaime.''

"If anyone wants to go in and watch him,'' Donald Giusti says,
"they're always welcome to do that. You have to be careful not to take
away too much of his time. Jaime doesn't really like it if you
interrupt his teaching. That's his first task.''

At Garfield, Escalante did not hesitate to criticize teachers who
did not meet his high standards, and that resulted in more than a few
clashes over the years. Escalante says he's learned his lesson. "Now I
keep my mouth shut,'' he says. "I'm not gonna be the one to create a
problem.''

Despite the passage of time, it's clear that Escalante is still
bitter over his 1990 ouster as chairman of the math department at
Garfield High. His one-time protege, Benjamin Jimenez, was elected to
the position. "It became a struggle between Ben and Jaime,'' says Tom
Woessner, who teaches AP history at Garfield.

"I helped him out all the way,'' Escalante says of Jimenez. "I spent
many years to prepare him.'' To hear him tell it, it's as if Escalante
sees Jimenez as his Brutus. "It's like your henchman--you never expect
to get shot in the back.''

Some teachers at Garfield are still upset over an article that
appeared in The Los Angeles Times a year and a half after Escalante
left the school. The headline told the story: "Math, Minus Escalante,
Suffers: Fewer Students Are Passing AP Calculus Placement Test Since
The Acclaimed Teacher Left Garfield.'' The article pointed out that, in
1992, the proportion of students who passed the first-year calculus
test dropped to 44 percent from 58 percent. The story also reported
that Jimenez and another Escalante protege, Angelo Villavicencio, had
left the school, "citing an unsupportive administration and faculty
dissension.'' (Villavicencio went on to create a highly successful AP
calculus program at Ruben Ayala High School in Chino, Calif. Jimenez,
who did not return several phone calls, now teaches at Santa Monica
College.)

But what really angered some faculty members were the comments from
Escalante: "I still [get] at least one phone call a day from Garfield
students or parents because they say nobody is looking out for them,''
he told the Times.

"He really kicked the math department after he left,'' says
Woessner. "That really struck a nerve. I found it to be upsetting and
disappointing. But he had been increasingly self-serving.'' Today, he
adds, Escalante "is not looked upon with a great deal of favor in the
math department.''

Math department chairman Stu Adler calls Escalante's comments "a
sore loser kind of thing.'' He admits that the proportion of Garfield
students passing the first-year AP calculus test has regressed, but he
says that isn't surprising given that more students are taking AP
calculus in the first place. Further, he says that the percentage of
students passing the second-year examination "has actually increased
since Escalante left.''

Escalante now says, "I feel a kind of sadness because the whole
program is gone with the wind.'' But he has fond memories of the
students he taught at Garfield. In his office, he keeps a large
scrapbook that contains photographs of each AP calculus class he taught
at the school, accompanied by a printout of the students' AP test
scores. As he flips through the album, Escalante is like a proud parent
showing off his children's grades to a stranger. He mentions one former
student who's now working on a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of
California at Davis, which is just down the road from Sacramento. Other
students ended up going to Stanford or Berkeley. He says they call him
often, and sometimes they even drop by his classroom. "You feel really
great when you see these kids come back,'' he says.

One of Escalante's gifts is his ability to raise large sums of money
to support his teaching. In Los Angeles, thanks to help from the ARCO
Foundation and the Foundation for Advancements in Science and Education
(FASE), Escalante was able to establish a Saturday and summerschool
math program at East Los Angeles College. The program played an
important role in the success of Garfield's AP calculus students.

Escalante is in the process of setting up a similar summer-school
program at Johnson. Last summer, he and several other instructors
taught geometry to about 50 incoming sophomores. A $100,000 grant from
the ARCO Foundation helped fund the project.

Last fall, Escalante received a threeyear, $363,000 grant from the
National Science Foundation to expand the summer and after-school
program. Sixty incoming freshmen from two feeder schools will take part
in the project. And it won't just be Escalante in front of the
classroom; four other Johnson math teachers, including Joe Epperson,
will also participate, along with tutors from California State
University at Sacramento.

"Jaime has gotten [financial] help because he knows how to ask for
it,'' Epperson says. "He's building a program, and he's doing it his
way. Every teacher should grab the bull by the horns.''

Escalante thinks the enrichment programs will make all the
difference in achieving the kind of success he had at Garfield. "In one
more year, maybe in a couple more years, this is gonna be one of the
best schools,'' he says. "We are moving in the right direction.''

Meanwhile, Escalante has continued to stay in the national
spotlight. He and FASE collaborated to produce "Futures with Jaime
Escalante,'' an award-winning PBS math and science series that is now
available on videotape. In addition, Escalante is in great demand on
the lecture circuit. He says he receives about 10 such requests every
day; he turns down most of them for lack of time.

The fact is, Escalante doesn't teach because he has to; if he
decided to quit tomorrow, he wouldn't be able to keep up with all the
job offers he would receive. But Escalante seems to know that the
classroom is where he belongs, and he has no intention of retiring when
he turns 65, which is only three years away. "My commitment is with the
students and the parents,'' he says.

Still, one wonders what will happen when Escalante is no longer
teaching at Johnson. Will the foun- dations drop their support? Will
the AP math program continue? Will the air-conditioning system be
dismantled? A year after Escalante left Garfield, math department
chairman Adler admitted that "losing Jaime Escalante was a heavy blow
to our program.... Our students really do miss their mathematics
teacher.'' Will Escalante's inevitable departure from Johnson have the
same effect?

Rudy Crew, now superintendent of schools in Tacoma, Wash., says, "I
don't like the idea of creating a hero out of Jaime. He's not a
celebrity. He's a master at what he does. I think he can provide some
much-needed inspiration for all of us.'' Yet Escalante is indeed a
celebrity, and teachers are notoriously skeptical when it comes to hero
worship. It isn't hard to understand why some teachers resent all the
attention Escalante has gotten. After all, most teachers--even the best
of them--go through their entire careers without getting any outside
recognition. Why should Escalante get all the glory?

And yet, why shouldn't he? Why shouldn't teachers who excel in their
field be given "special treatment''? Why shouldn't teachers' salaries
be based on performance, and not on length of service? Escalante
believes in tough standards for students and teachers--what's wrong
with that?

Instead of asking, "Why does Jaime Escalante get so much
attention?'' perhaps we should ask, "Why aren't more teachers getting
the same kind of attention he is?''

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